1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a feedback mechanism for use with visual selection methods in graphical user interface systems. The invention is particularly advantageous with regard to graphical user interface systems that do not have a cursor or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
Image maps are a widely used technique allowing users to perform graphical selections of hyperlink targets or active areas within a displayed image map. In a World Wide Web browser, for example, image maps are formed by associating an image with hyperlink targets or active areas. When a user clicks on one of the hyperlink targets or active areas, the browser displays an additional hypertext document. The additional document may provide additional information on the selected target, and/or provide a different, perhaps magnified, view of the originally displayed image map.
A cursor-based graphical user interface system relies on the location of the cursor within the graphical user interface being continuously defined. Typical graphical user interface systems provide indicators to help a user interact with a displayed image, such as, for example, an image map, and to interact with hyperlink targets or active areas within the displayed image. Therefore, whenever the location of the cursor is determined by the system to be in a predefined area on the image map, such as even only within a specific hyperlink target or active area or within the image map, the location or existence of the hyperlink target or active area is identified on the graphical user interface by displaying a locational indicator.
In particular, such conventional techniques, as in a cursor-based graphical user interface system, often rely on the cursor being positioned relative to one or more of the hyperlink targets or action areas without activating any of the controls on the cursor control device, such as a mouse, a joystick, a keyboard, a touch pad, a trackball, or the like. One such technique relies upon the cursor “hovering” over a hyperlink target or action area. Removing the locational indicator, or user tip, requires a separate gesture, such as moving the cursor control device.
More recent developments in image map or active area locating techniques have arisen, however, due to the increase in hand-held computing devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), personal organizers, palmtops, or handheld PCs. Such hand-held computing devices typically have a liquid crystal display (LCD) with a touch-sensitive screen. A stylus is used to enter data through the screen. An input device, such as a keypad, can also be included. These hand-held computing devices use the stylus or other instrument, in combination with the touch-sensitive display screen, rather than a cursor, to point to, and possibly select, specific locations within the graphical user interface. The stylus or other instrument in such hand-held computing devices performs functions similar to that of the combination of the cursor and the cursor control device in the above-described conventional cursor-based graphical user interface system.
In contrast to a cursor-based environment, a continuously-identified cursor location is not available in systems that use a stylus or the like, such as those systems described above. Therefore, locating hyperlink targets or active areas in an image map can be difficult, confusing, or at least frustrating to a user when a cursor having a continuously-defined location, such as in a mouse-oriented and/or cursor-oriented system, is not available to interact with the hyperlink targets or active areas within an image map.
Conventional techniques for interacting with an image map often fail when used with a system that does not use a cursor or the like. For example, systems, such as personal digital assistants, that do not have a cursor having a continuously-defined position within the graphical user interface, can not use such techniques. Pen-based graphical user interfaces and touch-screen-based graphical user interfaces are exemplary systems that do not have cursors that have continuously-defined positions within the graphical user interface.
In these cases, a hyperlink target or active area within an image map will not even be indicated to the user until the user generates a first specific gesture on that hyperlink target or active area. Thus, a user is left to guess where the hyperlink targets or active areas are located within an image map, unless the desired hyperlink target or active area is directly located by a first contact gesture. Conventional techniques therefore lack a level of efficiency or sophistication in locating hyperlink targets or active areas that would be advantageous to a user.
Pen-based graphical user interface systems similarly provide locational indicators or user tips that indicate the location of hyperlink targets or active areas within an image map when the stylus, for example, is placed within the boundaries of the image map. For example, in the known modal-type “slide to see” pen-based interaction technique, a user slides the stylus across the touch screen to identify the location of the hyperlink targets or active areas in an image map. The location of the hyperlink targets or active areas is displayed as long as contact is maintained between the stylus and the touch screen. The user then lifts the stylus to select the hyperlink target or active area that the stylus was in immediately before the stylus was lifted. Lifting the stylus, however, is an unnatural and unintuitive manner of selecting a hyperlink target or active area. Moreover, all of the locational indicators that were activated as a result of sliding the stylus across the image map remain visible at least until the stylus is lifted. These locational indicators clutter the image map, making the process of locating a desired hyperlink target or active area more difficult.
Additional modal-type techniques are possible. For example, locational indicators can be displayed while a hardware or software button is held down. This approach shares two problems with the “slide to see” technique. First, the user must remember at least one additional user interface gesture. Second, the user must execute input gestures to summon and dismiss the locational indicators.
On a different scale, touch-oriented systems with large display screens may continually flash or display various hyperlink targets or active areas to direct a user to, or identify to the user, the hyperlink targets or active areas within an image map. While such continuous flashing or displaying of hyperlink targets or active areas is reasonably conceivable with large display screens, handheld devices typically have very small display screens. Thus, in a typical pen-based graphical user interface environment having a small display screen, either all of the hyperlink targets or active areas will not be able to be shown, or cluttering and overlapping of the hyperlink targets or active areas may occur, making selecting a desired hyperlink target or active area difficult and subject to guessing by the user. Furthermore, the number of continually flashing hyperlink targets or active areas is often distracting and unappealing to most users.